Day: September 1, 2018

At that time, Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee, and began teaching the people at the Sabbath meetings. They were astonished at the way He taught them, for His word was spoken with authority.

In the synagogue, there was a man possessed by an evil spirit, who shouted in a loud voice, “What do You want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I recognise You : You are the Holy One of God.”

Then Jesus said to him sharply, “Be silent and leave this man!” The evil spirit then threw the man down in front of them, and came out of him without doing him harm. Amazement seized all these people, and they said to one another, “What does this mean? He commands the evil spirits with authority and power. He orders, and you see how they come out!”

Because the Spirit probes everything, even the depth of God. Who, but his own spirit, knows the secrets of a person? Similarly, no one, but the Spirit of God, knows the secrets of God. We have not received the spirit of world, but the Spirit Who comes from God and, through Him, we understand what God, in His goodness, has given us.

So we speak of this, not in terms inspired by human wisdom, but in a language taught by the Spirit, explaining a spiritual wisdom to spiritual persons. The one who remains on the psychological level does not understand the things of the Spirit. They are foolishness for him; and he does not understand, because they require a spiritual experience.

On the other hand, the spiritual person judges everything, but no one judges him. Who has known the mind of God so as to teach Him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s Scripture passages we listened to the words of the Lord, speaking to us about the matter of the revelation of His truth, which He revealed to us through first, the prophets and messengers, and later on, in its fullness of truth, through the Lord Jesus, Our Lord and God. He came to us with the Good News of His salvation, that we may come to know of His love and saving grace.

However, in the Gospel passage today, we heard of the unfortunate moment when the Lord Jesus went back to His hometown village of Nazareth, where He encountered opposition and rejection from none other than His own fellow countrymen and even perhaps close friends and relatives, all those who have known Him since His youth and lived around Him for many years.

And the Lord Jesus also made the point through His discourse, how prophets and messengers were not welcome in their own lands and homes, and were rejected by those who knew them well. Ironically, it was those who did not know the prophets and the messengers of God, including the example of the Lord Jesus Himself, that were willing to listen to God’s truth.

Now, we must truly wonder, why was it that the prophets and the messengers, including the Lord Jesus Himself were rejected by the people whom they knew well? In order to understand this, then we must understand how human relationships and thinking work. In our own relationships with others, we always want to find out about others, and when we do so, we make ideas, prejudices and bias in our minds, subconsciously.

What does it mean? It means that just as the saying goes, ‘First impression lasts’, we mankind are very easily impressionable by what we see and by what we hear and sense, and therefore, forming an opinion on something or someone almost as immediately as we witness that something or someone. This is what we have done to everyone and everything we encounter in life, as how we judge them by our human intelligence and wisdom.

But what is flawed is that, we often make assumptions and presumptions based on our own limited understanding and limited awareness of what is actually happening. That is what happened to those who rejected the prophets and messengers, just because they thought that they knew those whom God had called to be His servants. They must have argued that just because they knew those who were to be prophet and messengers, then they could not believe the authenticity of what the prophets have taught and declared.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is what happened to the Lord in Nazareth as well. He was, in the eyes of the people of Nazareth, a mere Son of the village carpenter, St. Joseph. And a carpenter was a very often overlooked profession, paid lowly and considered as a menial and tough job that no one wanted to do as a profession in their lives, unless they had no choice to do so.

By the standard of that time, carpenters and their families were usually very poor, and because of their poverty, they typically were uneducated. Hence, the people of Nazareth took offence at the Lord Jesus, just simply by the fact that His wisdom, the way He preached and taught to them, and how He had worked His miracles and showed His powers, which words would have reached their ears, could be something that was a reality.

They could not reconcile the fact that all those miracles and wonders, all the wisdom they heard being taught and the truth revealed to them about the fulfilment of the prophecy of the prophets, came about through the mere Son of a carpenter Whom they have seen growing up in their midst. To them, it was an affront and insulting that such things have happened, and they blamed the Lord for that.

In reality, it was their human wisdom and limited understanding, their pride in them that caused them to reject the Lord. They could not stand of being outshone by someone Whom they had known for so many years, Who suddenly revealed Himself as the Messiah of God right in their midst. Thus, they hardened their hearts and shut their ears off, refusing to listen to and accept the truth.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is often that we are also to blame for the same kind of attitude in our own respective lives. Too often it has been that we mankind are not receptive to suggestions and to the truth of God, just because we think that we know everything or that we cannot be wrong. This attitude caused us to shut ourselves off even from the Lord Who is trying to show us the way to the truth.

Today, we celebrate the feast of the great Pope, Pope St. Gregory the Great, who was remembered for his great piety and dedication to the growth and reform of the Church and the faith. Pope St. Gregory was remembered for his long years of dedication and service to God, as a monk and later on as the Papal ambassador to the Emperor’s court in Constantinople. He was remembered for being a strict yet dedicated and faithful person.

Pope St. Gregory the Great was in truth a very humble person. When he was elected to the office of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, as the successor of the Apostle St. Peter, leader of the entire Universal Church, he disavowed publicly any form of worldly ambitions and desires, stating clearly that he would devote his whole life to the service of God alone, and nothing else.

And he was remembered for his great commitment to the fulfilment of God’s works in the Church, in his reform of the Christian worship and liturgy and his great charitable efforts to the poor and to the needy, his fervent and strong opposition against all those who espoused heretical thinkings and teachings. His contributions to the Church were immense and yet, he remained after all, humble and focused towards God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all learn from the good examples shown by Pope St. Gregory the Great, that we may also learn to be humble and to be committed in living our lives with faith and with humility, that we may open our hearts and minds fully to the Lord, Who wants to show us the truth about Himself and yet, many of us have not allowed Him to speak in our hearts and minds because of our pride and stubbornness.

May the Lord be with us always and may He continue to bless us with His truth, that we may come to learn more and more about His love, and therefore, come to love Him even deeper in our own lives. May the Lord be our guide through our lives and show us the way to Himself. Pope St. Gregory the Great, holy servant of God, pray for us. Amen.

At that time, when Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, as He usually did. He stood up to read, and they handed Him the book of the prophet Isaiah.

Jesus then unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written : “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. He has anointed Me, to bring good news to the poor; to proclaim liberty to captives; and new sight to the blind; to free the oppressed; and to announce the Lord’s year of mercy.”

Jesus then rolled up the scroll, gave it to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. Then He said to them, “Today, these prophetic words come true, even as you listen.” All agreed with Him, and were lost in wonder, while He spoke of the grace of God. Nevertheless they asked, “Who is this but Joseph’s Son?”

So He said, “Doubtless you will quote Me the saying : Doctor, heal yourself! Do here, in Your town, what they say You did in Capernaum.” Jesus added, “No prophet is honoured in his own country.” Truly, I say to you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens withheld rain for three years and six months and a great famine came over the whole land.”

“Yet, Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow of Zarephath, in the country of Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha, the prophet; and no one was healed except Naaman, the Syrian.”

On hearing these words, the whole assembly became indignant. They rose up and brought Him out of the town, to the edge of the hill on which Nazareth is built, intending to throw Him down the cliff. But He passed through their midst and went His way.

When I came to reveal to you the mystery of God’s plan I did not count on eloquence or on a show of learning. I was determined not to know anything among you but Jesus, the Messiah, and a crucified Messiah. I myself came weak, fearful and trembling; my words and preaching were not brilliant or clever to win listeners.

It was, rather, a demonstration of spirit and power, so that your faith might be a matter not of human wisdom, but of God’s power.